


help me to say

by couldaughter



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 13th Century CE, F/F, Footnotes, Historical Anachronisms (Intentional or otherwise), Implied/Referenced Inconvenient Discorporation, Pining, Pre-Slash, Useless Lesbians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-03
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-04-07 05:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19078831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/pseuds/couldaughter
Summary: “Doesn’t the presence of this many nuns just sort of… inherently consecrate somewhere? I’m rather fond of the soles of these feet, angel, and I don’t fancy melting them off just yet.” Crowley slid onto the floor anyway, stretching onto tiptoes, surveying her surroundings. There wasn’t much to them, honestly. A wall hanging would be against the point.The tendons in her neck stood out as she twisted. Aziraphale swallowed.“Invest in some sandals,” she replied sharply, turning towards the opposite wall.





	help me to say

Aziraphale looked up at the sound of a pebble clattering through her window.

This was something of a surprise, since her cloister hadn’t _had_ a window when she’d last checked.

“Crowley?” she called, softly and with a silent regret at breaking a fifteen year streak. Life in the habit made one very competitive about that sort of thing, she’d discovered.

A familiar voice hissed, “Angel[1],” and at that Aziraphale really just had to check and make sure.

She leaned out over the windowsill carefully, thinking sadly of the last body she’d lost to an unfortunate fall from a high place (Babel really had been a bad idea all around), and caught sight of Crowley, last seen being inconveniently discorporated in a turf war in Silesia. The demon, seeing Aziraphale, smiled slightly and waved. She was in a female corporation again, long dark hair loose about her shoulders, long tunic covered in mud and surcoat undone. Completely typical.

“You’d better come up,” she sighed, and clicked her fingers. A rope ladder unfurled, just long enough to brush the long grass at the base of the wall.

Crowley had always been preternaturally good at climbing things, so it was a matter of seconds before she was perched on the sill, looking dubiously at the flagstone floor of Aziraphale’s… well, cell wasn’t _quite_ the right word, but it wasn’t technically wrong either.

“Oh, it’s fine,” said Aziraphale, tetchily. “This is a new build, they haven’t sanctified every blessed inch of the place as yet. Not likely they’ll get around to it either, they wouldn’t let any of us actually do the blessing and men aren’t permitted.”

“Doesn’t the presence of this many nuns just sort of… inherently consecrate somewhere? I’m rather fond of the soles of these feet, angel, and I don’t fancy melting them off just yet.” She slid onto the floor anyway, stretching onto tiptoes, surveying her surroundings. There wasn’t much to them, honestly. A wall hanging would be against the point.

The tendons in her neck stood out as she twisted. Aziraphale swallowed.

“Invest in some sandals,” she replied sharply, turning towards the opposite wall. There wasn’t terribly much to do in the space between vespers and matins besides a little recreational wall staring.

Crowley hooked her chin over Aziraphale’s shoulder, which was frankly unfair and ought not to be allowed. Strands of her hair, sinfully soft, brushed against the angel’s cheek. “Oh, don’t be like that,” she said, unaccountably cheerful. “And from the lack of sizzling, it seems like you were right about whoever consecrated this place. Lazy bastard. Man after my own heart.”

The flagstones, unconsecrated as they were, were freezing bloody cold in the evening chill that was now travelling unchallenged through the newly manifested window. Aziraphale pulled away and sat heavily on her truckle bed, straw mattress poking penitentially into her upper thighs. She patted the blanket beside her.

Crowley wasn’t looking at her, though. She was squinting at the three featureless walls of the cell, brow furrowed. Her eyes were still the same as always, of course; it was the one foolproof way of recognising each corporation, besides the way Aziraphale’s heart - or whatever ethereal mechanism was hanging about in her chest cavity - leapt every time they met.

“Angel,” she said slowly, voice a chalky down concealing flint. “I can’t help but notice - and correct me if I’m wrong here - that this room doesn’t have a door.”

Aziraphale sighed, and let her head fall back until it thumped against the wall with a loud _crack_. Tiny flecks of gravel drifted to the floor. The wall knew better than to complain, after fifteen years. “Oh, that’s a terrible dull story I’m afraid.”

Crowley raised her eyebrows. “Well, I had come meaning to tempt a few nuns into licentious pleasures, but if they’ve got an angel imprisoned I reckon some wires have got crossed elsewhere already.” She sat down beside Aziraphale, slouching elegantly and splaying her legs widely across the remaining space. Aziraphale took a very slow, careful breath. It was difficult to pinpoint when Crowley’s persistent miasma of brimstone and sulphur had become such a balm for frazzled nerves; Aziraphale tried not to dwell on it. That way lay madness.

“I really must belabour the point, dear,” she replied, belatedly. “It’s simply a case of mistaken identity.”

“What, they mistook _you_ for a troublemaker? You, who has certainly never lied to anyone, not even God, no siree?”

Aziraphale elbowed Crowley hard in the ribs. This didn’t actually hurt, but Crowley made a wounded noise anyway and pouted. Her lips drew Aziraphale’s eye, and in a completely unrelated occurrence the angel’s mouth parched.

“Oh, don’t,” Aziraphale muttered. “You really will do anything for a bit of sympathy, you old serpent.”

“Don’t blame me,” said Crowley. “I am merely the punching bag for a very grumpy angel trapped in a convent in --” She licked her finger and tested the air. “The south of France? Oh, angel, did the vineyards tempt you?”

“We are _not_ discussing the nature of my interest in this area!” But the vineyards had certainly not been a drawback of her most recent assignment. That had come later.

“Oh, come on,” smiled Crowley. Her smiles were very distinctive, Aziraphale had found. There was one for every colour of the rainbow, and angelic eyes saw rather more of them than the mnemonic would have you believe. This one was soft, angled at one side, revealing one canine that was rather sharper than regulation. “You can tell _me_.”

“Get thee behind me,” said Aziraphale, without heat. “The wine is rather poor, actually, considering the quality of the soil. I suppose we’ve a while to wait before the nuns pivot from honeyed mead.”

Crowley made a face which Aziraphale had learned meant she really wanted to say ‘Heaven forbid’. The last time she’d actually done it, from a convenient vantage point near Pevensey 200 years before, she’d been struck in the eye with an arrow. Aziraphale would deny letting the local women know the details to the end of days.

The embroidery had turned out rather well, anyway. Artistic license notwithstanding.

When Aziraphale next glanced across, a few moments later, Crowley had manifested a bottle of the selfsame wine and was squinting again.

“Your face will get stuck that way if you’re not careful,” she tutted, and reached for the horn beakers she’d been keeping under the truckle bed. Having two of them had seemed a little self-indulgent, but now the purpose was clear. As she passed Crowley a cup their fingers brushed, and Aziraphale certainly didn’t freeze[2].

She looked down at her lap, anyway, and twisted her fingers together. They were calloused and hard, now, after some decades of farmwork, and the nails were cracked from a very unfortunate bout of panic the week beforehand. She’d been convinced the walls were closing in.

“I’ve had worse faces,” said Crowley. She took a sip of the wine and wrinkled her nose. “Oh, that is, er, potent, isn’t it.”

Aziraphale nodded sadly. “It’s hardly worth the effort to imbibe, really, but there’s not a great deal else to do in here besides prayer.” She shook herself and coughed. “Which is of course a most wonderful and diverting way to pass the time.”

“Whatever you say, angel.” Crowley tipped the rest of the cup back and refilled it with a glance at the bottle. “Anyway, you’re getting off topic again. Don’t try and slither your way out of this, angel. A snake always knows.”

With a sigh, Aziraphale clicked her fingers and with nary a thought she was about six times drunker than she had been beforehand. “‘S much better,” she said with a firm nod. “Got to, um, work up t’it.”

“Oh, this’ll be good,” said Crowley, and followed suit. Drunk, she relaxed even more deeply into the bed, sliding down the wall until her head rested against Aziraphale’s hip, warm and solid. Even concealed by the habit this was a bit much[3]. “Mmm, ‘sss much better.”

“‘F you insist, Crowley,” said Aziraphale. She blinked thoughtfully. “What w’s I on about?”

Crowley narrowed her eyes, golden yellow almost vanishing beneath long eyelashes. “Getting incar-- incurs-- incarcer-- locked up.”

“Right, ‘s the bugger,” Aziraphale cheered. She took another sip of wine, oblivious as usual to the intended capacity of the bottle. “Anyway, so, so I come here, right, twen’y years ago, cuz Gabriel told me to.”

“Booooo,” said Crowley. “Feath’red prick. Stick up ‘is arse longer ‘n-- n-- a long thing.”

“Pole vault?”

“No.”

“Pine tree?”

“No.”

“Impaling spike?”

Crowley grinned, the one that spread with the inevitability of an oil slick and stuck around like one too. “Yes! Th’nks angel.”

“You’re welcome, darling,” said Aziraphale. It was a credit to the region’s vineyards that she didn’t notice the slip. “Anyway, so Gabriel sends me here, he says ‘don’t make any trouble this time ‘ziraphale or there’ll be --” she snorted at the memory. “Hell to pay.”

“Oh, basssstard,” hissed Crowley. She’d twisted at some point so her mouth was almost touching Aziraphale’s thigh. Her voice hummed pleasantly.

“So I turn up, right, ‘ve been prohibi- prohe- banned from doing _anythin_ ’, and ‘s fine for _years_ , no novishut angel _here_ , ‘n the first prayer they do after I’ve been issued this _thing_ ,” she gestured at the habit. “Is to the cherubim. Face revealing wossname. Haven’t heard it since, since, well, since it w’s in Hebrew. Or Aramaic. One 'f the two.”

Crowley hissed, this time in sympathy. Aziraphale wasn’t sure when she’d learned to tell the difference. “Tough break, angel,” she murmured.

“So, y’know, I’m sat there hoping n’thing comes of it, maybe they’ve changed the details sometime since Palestine, but nooo luck for old ‘ziraphale.” She gestured expansively, felt her hair come loose from its pins, swept her arm at the room for emphasis. “‘N I get caught out! All four heads on display, wings ungroomed, ‘n they have the nerve to call me a demon! _Me_! When ‘ve been thwarting your blessed wiles for longer’n they can _conceive_. Had t'convince them otherwise right quick I can tell you.”

“That when they threw you in here?”

“Well, Gabriel said not to make tr’ble,” muttered Aziraphale, flushing. “But when I tried to fly off I realised he’d… taken precautions. No fly zone in here.”

And hadn’t that been a nasty shock, spreading all four wings for the first time in millenia and the stupid things lifting her barely an inch. She’d felt a nasty joke about seed cake and indulging bubbling up inside and ruthlessly tamped it down. None of her other attempted miracles had worked either, panic rising the more minor manifestations failed. It had been, quite frankly, shite.

“And, you know, there did used t’be a door, right _there_ ,” she continued, pointing vaguely at the other corner of the room. The stones did seem a bit more haphazard in a roughly door shaped way, almost as if--

“Bricked it up, w’s a big coup getting a real angel at the convent. Think ‘m going to cure the plague I think.”

“Aren’t you?”

“Well, if my mojo weren’t, um, wossname -- impaired, I’d be bursting buboes across the whole of Europe.” She gestured again, then slumped a little further into the bed. She slid down the wall until she and Crowley were more or less on a level. Her hair probably looked an absolute fright - it had grown rather long, this time around, and it was an awful lot of effort to comb it every day. She preferred to pin it and leave it as long as possible. This led to another hirsute revelation, which made the day an all time record for them.

Crowley’s hands were, suddenly and horrifyingly, tangled in it.

“What are you _doing_?” said Aziraphale, so shocked her corporation forgot to slur the words. It felt… well, it didn’t matter whether it felt nice, or _comforting_ , it was clearly the prelude to a wile or a temptation or a _joke_ and that was not on at all.

“Calm down,” said Crowley, working industriously at a stubborn knot at the base of Aziraphale’s neck. “Just fixing this, er, nest. Not sure what’s roosting though.”

“Gorillas,” sighed Aziraphale. She let her eyes slide closed, feeling really quite drunk despite the moment of clarity. The stars were spinning more than usual.

The feeling of Crowley’s fingers combing through her hair was almost more intoxicating than the wine had been, if she was being perfectly honest[4]. It had been eons since Aziraphale had seen hide nor hair of most of her angelic brethren, and even then they weren’t much for earthly pleasures like combs, or shampoo.

She shifted slightly as Crowley solved one particularly stubborn knot, an odd sound escaping her throat. Crowley froze, fingers curled.

“Oh, sorry, my dear,” said Aziraphale. “Don’t worry, I c’n sort it later.”

Her eyes were still closed, so she didn’t see the way Crowley looked at her. This was perhaps for the best; six thousand years of missed opportunities are much more dramatic than five.

“It’s fine, angel,” she said quietly. She made quick work of the rest, and Aziraphale dozed through quick fingers twisting the dark brown strands into a simple braid. Crowley had always had clever hands, something Aziraphale dedicated a lot of time to absolutely not thinking about.

“Th’nk you,” she muttered as Crowley withdrew. Her brow furrowed, and she pushed herself up onto her elbows, eyes open and sober-clear. Crowley stiffened against her side. “ _Hang_ on.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Crowley swiftly. She motioned towards the window. “I should probably be off. Lots of iniquity to spread, you know how it is.”

“I wouldn’t like to owe you a favour,” Aziraphale replied. She put a hand on Crowley’s shoulder, felt sun-warm skin. Crowley’s skin was rarely warmed by anything else. “Last time doesn’t bear thinking about.”

“Oh, I could’ve asked for something far worse, you know. A little grave-robbing is nothing by comparison.” Crowley grinned again, looking far more like herself, far less wistful.

Aziraphale sniffed, but didn’t let go. “That’s not at all comforting. It’s not as if I go around asking you to influence the next Crusades.”

“You don’t like those anyway,” said Crowley. “You said it’s all ‘terribly unpleasant, and pointless besides’, wasn’t that it?”

“Well, yes, but that’s not the point,” said Aziraphale. It had been much nicer being drunk; lethargic and dizzy was better than upright and unaccountably frantic. “At least let me sort out your clothes.” She gestured at Crowley, who was covered in an impressive assortment of grass stains. It looked as if her surcoat had been in a rather violent disagreement with a bramble patch.

She passed her hand down Crowley’s arm, brushed her fingertips against the back of Crowley’s clever, soft hands, finding each stain and removing it with great prejudice.

“One of us may as well look presentable,” she said as she finished. She ducked her head. “It seems I usually draw the short straw on that one.”

“You’re not going to stay here, right?” Crowley asked. She’d rested one foot on the windowsill, elbow resting on her knee. It was quite the dashing sight, now she looked less like she’d been dragged through a hedge. “Not even a mirror to be crack’d from side to side next time I came visiting.”

Aziraphale scoffed. “Someone has a high opinion of themself.”

“Lancelot was a tosser, angel, you know that. If anything I’m flattering _him_ by comparison.”

She didn’t deign to reply, but the grin she could feel stretching across her face probably ruined the effect.

“No, I’m not staying. It seems I have this very handy window to escape from as and when I need it,” she said. “I’ll see you soon, foul demon.”

Crowley sat on the sill. “Until next time, feathery bastard.” Then she fell backwards, out of sight.

 _Quite enough excitement for one day_ , thought Aziraphale. And then she sat on the truckle bed, and stared at the moon, and brought her fingers to her mouth, and didn’t think about anything at all.

**Author's Note:**

> 1 This is usually impossible with a word like ‘angel’, which lacks any sibilants. This is also, if you ask a very specific kind of person, quitter’s talk.
> 
> 2 This was of course a complete prevarication. Aziraphale was an inveterate overthinker and always had been, which was part of why she was stuck in a (mostly) windowless, doorless cell in the first place. 
> 
> 3 In 456BC Crowley patted Aziraphale on the hand after a long airborne fight over Crete and Aziraphale still lay awake some nights wondering what it all meant.
> 
> 4 Vanishingly unlikely at the best of times.
> 
> edit: forgot to include html for italics! i am a dingus
> 
>  **a note on angelic gender:** i have here assumed angels have a level of agency over each corporation! az and crowley are both genderfluid but the span of eons means their fluidity is measured in millenia rather than weeks (*sighs wistfully in Gender*). they both use female pronouns in this story but neutral ones would be equally accurate, it just gives me a headache trying to grammarise it.
> 
>  **a note on the hierarchy of angels:** yes i know principalities aren't the same thing as cherubim but i spent So Long trying to find an apocryphal description of some good eldritch creature shit for them and there wasn't any so i'm just going to say az was a cherubim back in the day and took a lateral move/demotion into being a principality when he stayed on earth. wikipedia tells me principalities are like patrons or muses for things, i imagine az is patron of fine food and/or wine. maybe sushi restaurants. BOOKSHOPS. the point is there are options.
> 
> also, i couldn't get into this in the story but crowley is on the way to the convent to corrupt some nuns. julie d'aubigny beat her to it so she has some time off instead to braid aziraphale's hair and fail at being aloof
> 
> apologies if this doesn't make sense i just got the unquenchable urge to sigh in lesbian for almost 3000 words and this was the result.
> 
> title from ampleforth/lay me low by the albion band, a forever jam. the joke is that they can talk for england but they won't bloody SAY anything.
> 
> find me on tumblr and twitter @dotsayers just absolutely losing my shit over FINALLY getting the goddamn miniseries (shout out to everyone who was there in 2012 for the trailerpocalypse), even if this fic is firmly bookverse considering the number of corporations they've run through


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